People will always be the key to excellent customer service

There’s a story I read on the internet (so you know it has to be true!) awhile back about a major snowstorm in Pennsylvania that occurred near the holidays. As a result of the blizzard, an 89-year old man, living on his own, got snowed in at his apartment. His daughter was concerned that he would run out of food, so she called a number of stores to see if they’d deliver.

No luck… until she called Trader Joe’s. Now, Trader Joe’s doesn’t normally deliver, but after hearing this woman’s story, they agreed to do so. In addition to taking the woman’s order, the Trader Joe’s employee also suggested food items that would work for her father’s low-sodium diet. Half an hour after the call, Trader Joe’s had delivered about $50 worth of food to the man’s apartment.

And to top it all off, when the woman went to pay Trader Joe’s for the food and delivery, they told her not to worry about it and have a Merry Christmas.  Now, maybe this story has been “embellished” a bit for the internet. Maybe not. But the point I want to make is that the interaction centered on real communication between two people.

At a hotel where I once stayed, I heard about a guest who was working out in the hotel gym and pulled a muscle in his neck. A trainer at the gym recognized the injury and suggested a massage. The massage therapist knew about the guest’s problem even before meeting the guest because the trainer had already filled him in. Finally, when the guest got into bed at the end of a long day, he went to sleep on fresh, firm pillows. The hotel had switched out his old pillows, knowing the firmer ones would be kinder to his pulled muscle.

The open lines of communication facilitated by the hotel and executed by its staff created an amazing customer experience.  Both the overt and subtle forms of communication are always at work in the relationships you have with your customers. Displaying attentiveness and a positive attitude, for example, goes a long way toward creating the kinds of relationships we’re all after.

Technology will continue to advance and the possibilities of communication will continue to expand, however; the essence of customer satisfaction and success will always fall on the ability of a person to listen and communicate effectively with their customers.  Technology is helping to change the future of customer service for the better. But there will always be a place for people, especially good communicators.